Archive for August, 2006

let’s get ready to rumble…google style.

Sunday, August 20th, 2006

i just got this awesome “widget” (small program for the mac that does not assist in picking up girls) for my desktop called “google fight.” essentially, besides bringing my maturity level down a few notches and wasting my time, this widget is quite useful when used correctly. basically, you enter two search terms in two separate queries and for each term, google returns a bar graph representation of how many pages or hits that search would return if you were to actually google it. you could easily just independently google the terms, yes, but this is much more dramatic. especially since the bars “grow” as the search engine combs the net, adding the much-needed suspense element to my life.

of course, i am now using “google fight” to come up with useless knowledge that i can drop on ANYONE at ANYTIME, as well as answer those tough questions from my loyal readers…


ROUND 1

finally, the longstanding debate can be substantiated!

christina_a-vs-britney_s

however, i’m more of a christina aguilera fan. some small manipulation gives:

christina-vs-britney

ROUND 2

on to more important, serious matters. allow me to dazzle you with my political and worldly prowess, as i hear globalization is the new hottness:

us-vs-theworld

that’s funny - the u.s. was winning a week ago last time i checked. more troops must be deployed!

ROUND 3

naturalselection-vs-id

go science…actually i’m suprised there’s even this much on intelligent design. just goes to show you how much CRAP there is out there on the net (sans this site, of course).

ROUND 4

coke-vs-pepsi

*sigh* now, i can rest in peace.

tour de FORCE

Wednesday, August 9th, 2006

i figure i need to post this quickly before it becomes old news. this is tough for me, actually keeping up on current events, but i’m having trouble getting over how ridiculous the tour de france is getting…got, whatever.

i barely followed the tour de france when lance armstrong was riding, and he was actually exciting to watch. when he left, there would maybe be a REMOTE possibility that i was going to click the cycling link on espn.com - mostly to see who of the next top riders might win now that lance is gone. but then THEY got busted for doping. c’mon! NOW, we’re forced to watch essentially amateur hour on wheels. i’d rather watch curling or or the NASA channel.

tourdeFORCEso, if we want to restore cycling to it’s competitive nature and watch the fans return in forgiveness, there’s only one thing left to do - MAKE DOPING MANDATORY. i’m not talking about just legalizing it for use so it becomes a choice of the athlete - you’ll still get those boring guys with morals that will refuse to dope and then whine about how they are true athletes and at least their you-know-what is the same size - well we don’t need them.

i’m talking about drug tests before races to MAKE SURE that the cylclist has done everything in his power to crush the competition. that he has AT LEAST a red blood cell count of a brontasaurus, and that his testosterone:epitestosterone ratio is about 100x that of the combined audience at a taping of “the man show” or ivan drago from rocky IV.

why throw out all this good science and research that went into making someone superhuman? i mean, if we put things in perspective here, if you were drinking gatorade in the 50’s that was doping. “well i would have won the race, but i choose not to use any electrolyte-replacing-enchancing liquids, like my competitors.” well get the net. EVERYBODY’s doing it now. and my guess is that 30 years from now, there’s going to be cereals like “EP-O’s” or steroids in powerade.

SO - imagine the outcome - the best cyclist will win, just like before, but they’ll be averaging about 50mph over the entire 2,000 mile race. the race may actually last 1.5 weeks instead of 3 weeks. the sprints to the finish line will start 30 miles back instead of 30yds. there will be guaranteed roid…er, road rage.

now THAT’s worth watching.

i’m so pumped up about this thinking about its application to ALL sports, i’ve decided to compose a poem:

800ft homeruns, two minute miles,
90yd field goals just makes me smile.
let’s liven up sports, they’re getting quite dull,
i mean there’s poker on tv doesn’t that say anything about how real sports are maintaining the people’s interest?

range_is_good

the post office

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006

considering my rantings and musings about various establishments/people such as wal-mart, the media, pizza delivery dudes, that one annoying guy, hippies, jamba juice, etc. (how’d you like that for plugging myself), you’re probably expecting me to mention the post office by now.

ALAS! i will today…but, for a limited time only, i’m going to try to talk POSITIVE about the 21st century’s pony express…

mostly because i feel post offices get a bad rep (the whole “that job is so miserable people get depressed and shoot everyone” joke doesn’t help…along with the phrase “to go postal”) , postalso when i got back from the post office not too long ago i decided i needed to put some good karma out there for our government employees. why? because my most recent post office experience was the most painLESS experience (related to mail) EVER. i just had to mail a large envelope…no forms, no lines, nothing. i was in and out in about 2 minutes. when the post office lady said “thank you, have a nice day” i couldn’t move. it’s like going into the doctor for a tetanus shot and you’re bracing yourself for this incredible pain and then they’re like “ok, it’s done” and you’re like ‘what? that’s it?’ like you’re disappointed they didn’t justify your pre-injection whining. so there i am, at the post office, my work done. but i was just waiting there - dumbfounded out of ease and efficiency of my transaction - for one of the disgruntled employees just getting off his coffee break to punch me in the stomach and then tell me to go to the end of the line. you know the end. right by all those two-dimensional priority mail boxes that you have to pay for, and fold yourself, only to have the mailman punt it around “backstage” with his buddies ace ventura-style. then the recipient of the package rips it open and throws it in the trash. SCREW THAT.
ace
nonetheless i was able to leave in triumphant disbelief and feel i must share this because the consumer oriented post office is about to go the way of zubaz pants and crystal clear pepsi (wow, there’s so much great material there i may have to devote entire posts to those topics alone). i mean, for one, i can’t remember the last time i bought stamps. boomerangit was probably the last time i wrote a check… which was probably for the stamps. i’m pretty sure it was 1990 when i was mailing away for a free foam boomerang with 10 proofs of purchases from cheerios. those were great, actually. cereals used to have some cool stuff inside. now it’s all crap, like justin timberlake stickers for your notebooks or cd-roms with health propaganda on them. i remember having a specific “bin,” which, as soon as i forced my mom to purchase a cereal, i would just dump the entire box in this bin so i could easily fish out the latest toy. this would happen with multiple cereals and of course i wouldn’t eat them once they were all mixed up. like the last thing i want is to eat a lucky charm red balloon marshmallow with a raisin on it. gross.

ANYWAY - i feel sorry for post office. it’s one of uncle sam’s oldest children. treading water because it can’t pass math class or make friends on the playground, and consistently gets called to the principal’s office for firearm possession. meanwhile its brother, the military, is dominating the world and getting all the budget/media attention. the internet destroyed its era, and once the baby boomers are gone, who will be left to patronize it? why do you think stamps only have old school people like elvis and “i love lucy” on them? because these people are recognized by those using the stamps. elvisyou’ll never see jay leno or mc hammer on a circulating stamp. well maybe the hammer, but i’m sure he’d demand 10% of the stamp sales to help get out of bankruptcy (oh!).

but now, people use the post office less because the stamps are annoying and keep going up (if the post office REALLY wanted to boost their presence with the younger generation, they should lace the sticky stamp side with whiskey or ecstasy and revamp their ad campaign: “STAMPS: lick it, mail it or hit it” or something) - so people start sending emails with attachments. so the post office raises the price of stamps to keep its balance sheet afloat. a vicious cycle. i vividly remember the day my dad discovered he could save 37 cents by scanning in newspaper clippings and emailing them instead of snail-mailing them. now i can practically tell you who got the speeding ticket yesterday near the taco bell in my hometown. and his coinpurse has never been more full.

[raise glasses] to the post office!